A Deadly Trade: A gripping espionage thriller. E. Seymour V.
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Название: A Deadly Trade: A gripping espionage thriller
Автор: E. Seymour V.
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Приключения: прочее
isbn: 9780008271527
isbn:
‘To be expected, indeed,’ Reuben said. ‘With the lingering stink over the Kelly affair, the security services are bound to be at the centre of a swirl of new allegations. They will not welcome renewed attention.’
I didn’t react. With every appearance of calm, as if Wilding were nothing more than a humble computer programmer setting up a new project, I said, ‘What if Wilding had her own agenda? What if she was working in an offensive capacity?’ Why else would the information be at her home?
He spread his hands and gave a wide shrug. I frowned. Reuben was doing the equivalent of feeding me titbits and then running away. ‘Whatever it was, this is well outside my experience,’ I said. ‘More than likely a foreign security service is responsible for her death.’
‘Then why were you employed?’
He had me there. Wes dealt exclusively with international organised crime. Silence invaded the room like a conquering army. I stayed still, tuned out. Finally Reuben broke the deadlock.
‘The British have an asset within a newly emergent fundamentalist Muslim splinter group based in the Midlands.’
‘Terrorists?’ I said, with a snatch of alarm.
‘Yes.’
I remembered Yakovlevich’s take on young Muslim radicals. I eyed Reuben with suspicion. ‘How do you know and how is this relevant?’
He let out a tired sigh as though I was particularly stupid. ‘Muslim groups are always relevant. The uneducated masses still declare death to Israel and death to the West.’
I suddenly didn’t buy Reuben’s alleged ignorance. ‘Reuben,’ I added sternly. ‘You are forcing connections and speaking in riddles,’ I said, exasperated. ‘Frankly, this is political dynamite and I don’t do politics.’ Nor religion nor fundamentalism, I could have said.
Reuben flashed a smile and hunched his shoulders. ‘I may be out of the game, Joshua, but there are certain things that a man like me can divine.’ I looked deeply into his eyes. He met my gaze with a considered expression. ‘McCallen is meeting the asset tomorrow here in London.’ He gave me the details.
‘Divination is one thing,’ I said deliberately. ‘If you’re so out of the game, how come you know about the meeting?’
Reuben slow-blinked, issued a wily smile. ‘Remember that everyone is there to be used.’
Dissatisfied, I stood to leave. Reuben got up, too, and followed me out into the hall and to the front door. Before he opened it he rested a hand on my arm. Despite the lightness of touch, I could feel the power of the man radiating through his fingertips. He quoted a motto of which he was particularly fond: By way of deception, thou shalt do war.
I bought some electric hair clippers from an open all hours’ chemist and booked into one of many cheap budget hotels near Paddington. Not the most comfortable establishments but they had their advantages. Within close proximity of train stations they offered the best chance of escape, and they employed the type of temporary staff inclined to be less discriminating. The night porter barely lifted his eyes let alone paid attention to my battered appearance as I asked for a room for the night.
Reuben’s intelligence was non-specific in certain aspects, precise and detailed in others. Caught in a slimy net of events beyond my understanding, it made me suspicious. With this firmly planted in my head I fell asleep quickly and came to a couple of hours later, restless, awake and wired.
Logically, Wilding’s murder looked politically motivated, a foreign security service responsible for her death. And yet, as Reuben had pointed out, someone had been willing to employ a guy like me. In the same vein, my unknown assailant didn’t strike me as an ‘in-house’ professional. Whoever he was, I intended to find out – maybe Wes could offer an opinion – but first I’d keep my date with McCallen, the thought of crossing paths with her again strangely exhilarating.
In the past, my rare encounters with mostly foreign women had been restricted to the one-off, passionate and no holds barred variety, commonly termed the one-night stand. In the heat of the moment, terrific; hollow in the aftermath. I didn’t believe a woman like McCallen would ever look twice at a man like me and yet I briefly wondered what it would be like to sleep with her, how she would feel and taste. Wasn’t a simple case of sexual attraction, it was more elemental. Before the Wilding job I would have said that we were flip sides of the same coin. We both moved in murky worlds. We both had secret lives. We both hewed the rich seam of frail and foolish humanity. Long-term relationships were out. Neither of us could make promises, nor offer commitment. Alike in so many aspects and yet, I had to admit, light-years away in others. With this swilling around inside my head, I lay back down, resting in the shadows, then finally turned over and fell into a fractured sleep.
Low in spirit, smudged by fatigue, I rose at six in the morning. An hour later and, thanks to my new electric hair clippers, I had a brand new image. Along with the bruises and swelling around my left eye and torn ear, my freshly shaved head added several years to my appearance. Tag on a pair of outdated spectacles and scruffy jacket and I could pass for a recently released guest of Her Majesty.
Before leaving the hotel room, I wiped away fingerprints, paying particular attention to door handles, lavatory seats, anything that bore my personal insignia, then headed back to the streets and found a newsagents, part of a large chain, and rifled through the day’s newspapers. The identikit picture of me was particularly poor. Had McCallen protected me? I quickly dismissed the idea as wishful thinking.
Her meeting was scheduled for nine forty-five in a precise corner of Kensington Palace Gardens. (Reuben had all but given me the co-ordinates.) Arriving half an hour early, I walked up the road and entered the park through a wide set of gates that always reminded me of the elegant entrance to Pittville park in the Cotswold capital of Cheltenham, my home town.
Out of nowhere two black-clad police officers, carrying Heckler and Koch MP5’s, walked along the street towards me. Heart thudding in my chest, I curbed my natural instinct, which was to turn and leg it. Still they came, their gaze seemingly unfocused, the weapons held close to their barrel chests. At any moment I knew these guys could spring into action and empty a couple of magazines into me. The closer they walked, the more I sweated. My hearing went, my tongue stuck like bubblegum to the roof of my mouth. All I could see were the men and the guns, nothing else. Forcing my legs to move, I nodded good morning. They both nodded back, strolled past, oblivious of my real identity. I turned into the park and let out a painfully contained breath.
In spite of the Arctic weather, joggers ran, halting to perform the occasional squat thrust. Tourists milled about, snapping photographs. Footpaths were slippery and coated in frost. I meandered left, eyes raking my surroundings, and eventually walked past a bench that offered privacy without secrecy. If McCallen’s asset was as high-grade as Reuben led me to believe she would want him secure and in a place where nobody could slot him and get away with it.
Falling in with a bunch of Australians admiring the late Princess Diana’s old home, I waited when, eventually, a slightly built man in his mid-twenties rocked up. Hands thrust deep into a padded jacket, woollen Beanie hat close over his ears; he wore a desert scarf in a black and white chequered design, rebel republic style. A soft dark beard offset his pinch-faced features. Watchful СКАЧАТЬ